


Under a Blood Red Sky

by wanderingstoryteller



Series: No one ever said this life would be simple [4]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Aliens Made Them Do It, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Aphrodisiacs, F/F, Fisting, Girl Penis, Knotting, Mating Cycles/In Heat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 08:23:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17260865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingstoryteller/pseuds/wanderingstoryteller
Summary: The Doctor and Yaz find themselves trapped in an alien zoo. Their captors are determined to save the Time Lord species and intend to use the Doctor and her companion to do so.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just adding another classic fanfiction scenario to this series.

The Doctor woke slowly. She was lying on something soft, when she turned her head she saw that it was red grass. Even that movement made her dizzy for a moment and she let her head lull back, above her stretched a brilliant red and orange sky.   

Gallifrey? How had she gotten from a twenty third century space station orbiting Jupiter to here? Also why weren’t the clouds moving. As she watched the sky flickered slightly, like a cheap hologram. She rubbed her open palms against the ground again, she wasn’t lying on grass at all, just some kind of bright red astro turf.

She sat up worriedly. Now that she could see her environment properly she realized that there were shrubs and trees of equally fake appearance. She wasn’t in a particularly large space at all, it seemed to spread out about the distance of a football field until hitting a shimmering surface of the Gallifreyan landscape that was as much a projection as the sky.

It was then that she noticed her own clothes were gone, replaced by plain white surgical scrubs. A hazy memory surfaced of being strapped down onto a cool white medical table and being poked and prodded in intimate places.

She shuddered and found her feet. Where were her companions? The last she could recall they had been walking through the market of the space station. They had only needed a few mechanical parts for the TARDIS but of course they had gotten distracted easily.

Ryan had wanted to eat a funny noddle like dish that came in a plastic bowl shaped like a fireman’s hat. Graham had been dubious of such a food presentation but accepted one as well. As a general rule he didn’t turn down food, meals were too unpredictable in the Doctor’s company and he was very sick of energy bars.

The Doctor had noticed that Yaz was fascinated with a sort of singing origami dragon on a string toy that children were running around with. Yaz would have never asked for one, never even admitted she wanted something so simple and childish.

The Doctor had of course gone to get her one. In retrospect, that had been her mistake, leaving her companions alone in the that market. It had just felt safe, full of noise and light and future humanity. She should have known nothing was ever truly safe, not for herself and not for those she loved.

She had seen a flash of movement but not reacted quickly enough before she was yanked into an alley and something was jabbed into her neck. Her world went dark. She surfaced a few times, only to feel another jab at her neck. Then there was the unpleasant memory of what may or may not have been a medical exam and now this bizarre place.

She stood and began to slowly examine her enclosure. She was somewhat relieved to find that it wasn’t all just a sad attempt to emulate a story book idea of a Gallifreyan landscape. There was a tiny half open to the air wooden structure that included a large soft low bed with fake fur blankets. Mercifully there was also a very basic toilet with walls that went all the way around and a wicker door. At least her captors understood she was smart enough to use doors and a toilet.

No sign of a shower or a sink though. Did they expect her to bathe in the little fake stream that ran through the enclosure? Did they not expect her to be there long enough for it to matter?

Suddenly there was a whooshing sound like the opening of an airlock. The Doctor whirled around and reached the other side of the enclosure just in time to see something that looked almost like a spiral door close behind two white coated figures. More importantly Yaz was now lying on the fake grass, still a death. She was wearing the same white scrubs the Doctor was.

The Doctor raced to her, worriedly kneeling beside her mate. Yaz was breathing. She looked whole and unharmed, although her skin was flushed. As the Doctor leaned closer to check her further, she breathed in the scent of an omega Time Lady in heat, which really made no sense whatsoever.

She sat back, rapidly shaking her head in a tardy attempt to keep the scent from taking effect.

Yaz’s eyes fluttered open.

“Doctor?”

The Doctor forgot all about trying not to scent her. “I’m here Yaz, I’m here.”  

“Doctor, I need you,” Yaz reached for her, yanking her into a clumsy kiss. For all her confusion and uncertainty at the situation, the Doctor couldn’t stop herself from kissing her back. This was her wonderful darling Yaz and she smelled incredible.

Except Yaz wasn’t an omega and she shouldn’t smell like one. This might not even be Yaz. That thought alone, that she could be embracing an illusion or some manner of replicant, was enough to return her to her senses even as her rut began to take root. The Doctor pushed away the slightly smaller woman, standing to glare at the now closed entry way. Yaz moaned in protest but was still a bit too dazed to do more than reach for her.

“What do you want from us? What have you done to my companion? Where are my other companions?”

A hologram flickered into life in front of her. It was of a humanoid figure wearing a white lab coat. Although she had three eyes, the woman looked otherwise like a human variant. She even appeared to be holding a clipboard. Her voice was slightly distorted when it came over the speakers.

“Calm yourself Subject 24601. You and your mate are now part of the Protectors’ captive Time Lord breeding program. We did not collect the two human males you travel with as we deemed them unnecessary to the program.”

Of course they’d call themselves something grandiose like that. It was never anything as self descriptive as the Endangered Species Protection Society or anything like that.

“I won’t ask you again. What have you done to my mate?”

“Fixed her so that you could be fully compatible. Her psychic centers were underdeveloped so we augmented them with a transmitter chip at the base of her brain stem. We could  not make her body produce omega pheromones but we temporarily applied them to her skin and administered a human safe aphrodisiac.”

“You can’t just go around altering people’s bodies.” She could feel a gathering rage inside of her, the deep and burning anger she always felt when she witnessed the strong using their power to take away the choices of others.

“Do not become angry Subject 24601, it will only worsen the distress your natural mating cycle causes you. We  are trying to save your species. As we have been unsuccessful in capturing the one other surviving Time Lord female, your human mate will have to do.”

Wait, were they trying to capture Missy? Missy was dead wasn’t she? Probably not actually, the Master had never stayed dead. Also why did they think that Time Lords needed saving? Last time the Doctor had visited Gallifrey, her species had been doing fine, even if she’d had a more than unpleasant reminder of why she’d left. Did these Protector people still think that Gallifrey was gone?

“I’m not an animal, I won’t breed for you just because you put some funny smelling perfume on my mate.”

“You are an animal. You are even classified as an advanced sentient, that is why you are being granted answers to your questions.”

“Then you know I’m not going to accept this!”

“You will or your mate will suffer. The aphrodisiac we gave her mimics the effects of a Time Lord heat. Her current state of intense arousal can only be eased by sexual release. You will also be glad to know we took out the metal device she had in her uterus, so she can actually conceive now. ”

“You did what!” She had never been a woman who yelled, at least not in this regeneration, but she could work more fury in a few words than most people could get into a screaming rant.

Their captors had touched Yaz in a place they never should have. They’d literally take out her birth control against her will. It was an unforgivable level of violation. She could feel her rut aggression cursing through her. She wanted to attack the hologram even though she knew that would achieve nothing.

“You had best let my mate and me out now or I can promise you that you won’t like it when we get out on our own. I am going to tear this place apart and free everyone you have captured. I will make your organization nothing more than an embarrassing memory in the annals of history.”

Her whole speech might have sounded a bit more dignified if she hadn’t finished with a low growl, her teeth bared.

“Subject 24601, you are beginning to show rut aggression. You had best get that under control or you will frighten you mate. I will speak to you again and answer any further questions you might have after you have completed your current breeding cycle.”

The urge to attack the space the hologram had been in was almost overwhelming. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides. She hadn’t reacted this badly to a rut since she was a much, much, younger Time Lord.

“Doctor?” Yaz’s voice pulled her back to herself. The young human had found her feet and stood with her arms wrapped around herself, seeming to shiver in the warm air of the enclosure, even as sweat beaded down the side of her face. “Please Doctor, it hurts.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fun smutty bit

“Oh Yaz, my poor darling” The Doctor knew she should be trying to keep as far away as possible from her mate but instead she went to her, pulling the trembling woman into her arms. “I’ve got you, you are safe.”

Yaz nuzzled at her neck. “I really, really need you to fuck me baby.”

“I know and I want to so badly. We just can’t.”

“Why,” Yaz nipped at the Doctors skin lightly in a way she knew always drove the Time Lady crazy.

“You’ll get pregnant.”

“I don’t care.”

“You’ll care afterwards.”

Yaz slipped her hands under the Doctor’s shirt. With no bra to get in the way, her fingers easily found a nipple and twisted hard enough to drag a surprised and hungry gasp out of the Doctor.

“Then we’ll make a beautiful baby. Please, Doctor. I feel like I’ll die if I don’t have you.”

The Doctor tried to take a step back. She ended up stumbling and falling on her ass. Yazmin followed her down, pinning her and kissing her hungrily.

By the time they pulled apart, the Doctor was utterly breathless and in full rut. She couldn’t have pushed Yaz away if her life depended on it. She wanted her as desperately as she had the first time she’d touched her, as deeply as every time she had since.

Yaz sat back just long enough to tug off her own shirt and pants before pulling off the Doctor’s shirt. When she started on her pants, the Doctor caught her wrist with a surprisingly strong hand.

“No, Yaz. We can’t fuck like that. I won’t breed you when you are in no state to understand the consequences.”

Yaz brought her other hand to try and grab the edge of the Doctor’s pants and the Time Lady had to grab that wrist too.

“I understand. I’ll take the risk. Please, please, please just fuck me, please!”

The Doctor rolled them, pushing Yaz onto her back, straddling her. “I’ll fuck you my darling, sweet, beautiful Yaz but I will not do it in a way that takes any of your choices from you.”

Yaz bared her smooth white human teeth at her, eyes wide with need. “Then stop talking and fuck me!”

The Doctor let go of her wrists and pressed a hand between Yaz’s spread legs. She was achingly wet.

Yaz gasped and threw her head back, beginning to tremble. She nearly sobbed when the Doctor worked two and then three fingers into her, moving them quick and sharply. It made it difficult to balance but the Doctor brought two fingers of her other hand to rub at Yaz’s clit, the way she knew she liked.

Yaz bucked and moaned beneath her. Nearly as soon as they had begun she was clenching desperately on the Doctors fingers. The Doctor kept fucking her and Yaz screamed her way through the first of a series of short frantic orgams.

She brought her off again and again until her hands started to cramp and Yaz finally slumped beneath her.

The Doctor returned her hands to the astro turf and leaned up to kiss her mate gently.

“Better darling?”

Yaz rolled them in one sharp motion. She straddled the startled Doctor, this time succeeding in yanking down her pants. “I am not done.”

She tried to rise up to sink down on the Doctor’s penis. Frantically the Doctor reached a hand between them, cupping Yaz’s sex and stopping her. Sometimes she she utterly hated her own noble nature.

“This is not what you want.”

“Yes it is and it is what you want too. I see it in your eyes.”

“We can’t conceive a baby without talking it over.”

“I’m done talking. Tell me you don’t want this. Go on tell me!”

Something inside of the Doctor broke. She needed Yaz,she just needed her so damn badly. She let her hand fall to her side. That was all the invitation Yaz needed. She grabbed the Doctor’s penis and impaled herself in one hungry motion.

They both gasped with pleasure. Usually Yaz needed a moment to adjust when she took the Doctor’s not inconsiderable phallus, this time she didn’t. She began to move almost instantly. She slammed herself down again and again as the Doctor grabbed her hips and helped her.

The Doctor felt her knot starting to grow. Their pace faltered for a moment when the knot proved already big enough to catch at Yaz’s entrance and not leave her easily.

“Wait, wait, stop,” begged the Doctor trying to work a hand between them. “I won’t hurt you.”

Yaz grabbed her hands, shoving them down, still grinding herself on her lover. “You won’t hurt me Doctor. I want to do this.”

“No, your still not a Time Lady. Please, at least let me stretch you properly first. I won’t tear you.”

“I’m stretched.”

“No you are not. Let me fist you first.”

Want filled Yaz’s eyes.

The Doctor knew she’d won.

Yaz let go of the Doctor’s hands and she frantically got one between them. She couldn’t hide the deep groan of pain that rose from her throat as her knot fully inflated without the desperately needed pressure of an omega's internal walls. They were both too close to let it stop them though.

Yaz clenched around the part of the Doctor she did have inside of her as the Time Lady released inside of her. Yaz collapsed onto her panting for breath.

They lay gasping for a few minutes and then Yaz rolled off of her. “Come on. I really need you to do what you said you would.”

A sudden thought occurred to the Doctor, she sat up and addressed the wall. “If you want me to knot her properly, give us some lube.” They probably did not actually need it but human bodies could be tricky and the Doctor didn’t want to risk harming Yaz’s.

After a moment a bit of grass suddenly slid back and a bottle rose up from beneath the ground.

It occurred to the Doctor that if their captors would really give her anything she said was necessary for mating she should have also asked for something that might help them escape. She needed an escape plan. She just still needed Yaz too much to think out any details yet.

She took the bottle and poured some onto her hand, sniffing it. It was scentless and the bottle was unmarked. She fully slicked her hand before stretching out beside Yaz again. They had done this before, quite a few times in fact. Yaz really liked being fisted. It was something the Doctor was actually interested in trying as well but needed to further accustom herself to her new form first.

She kissed Yaz as she began to work three and then four fingers into her. Yaz might have actually been right about how stretched she was. She’d never felt her this wet and open before. The Doctor  kept fucking her with four fingers, brushing her thumb against her clit every couple of thrusts.

Yaz was nearly incoherent. “Doctor!”

Her mate folded her thumb into her palm and slowly pressed into her. At first it felt impossible, then Yaz’s internal muscles eased and suddenly the Doctor’s entire hand was slipping into her companion’s body.

Yaz made a desperate sound, eyes closed with concentration. No matter how careful they were, Yaz said that part always hurt a little bit. She also said it was her favorite part.

The Doctor gave her lover’s body time to adjust, using her free hand to begin to rub Yaz’s clit. She waited until Yaz began to roll her hips to finally gently rock her hand.

“Yes, yes, yes.” Yaz stared at the Doctor with lust filled dark eyes. If the angle had been better, the Doctor would have kissed her. Instead she began to move her fist more.

“Hard, please fuck me harder goddamn it!”

She obeyed her mate.

Yaz clawed at her back in her desperation. She drew blood, the Doctor didn’t care.

When Yaz came, her entire body went rigid and she slumped onto the ground.  After a few breaths she managed, “Out, now.”

The Doctor did as her mate asked, before pulling her into her arms. They were both too far gone to care that the Doctor gotten lube and fluids all over Yaz’s shoulder. They lay tangled together for a few minutes.

Yaz seemed almost sated and the Doctor wondered if they might actually be done. Then Yaz reached between them, grabbing at the Doctor’s penis, checking her knot which had finally nearly gone down.

Yaz gave her a squeeze and then rolled away. She went up onto her hands and knees and gave the Doctor a devilish grin over her shoulder. “This is your favorite way to fuck isn’t it?”

The Doctor could have denied her nothing in that moment. Instinct, desire, love, all of it tangled together into the raw animal need to fuck her eager mate.

She barely remembered to lube herself before she was covering Yaz, pressing into her warm, wonderful  body. Yaz pressed back against her.

“Yes, yes, fuck me. Show me I’m yours.”

The Doctor’s hips moved almost of their own volition. She rutted into her mate frantically,  harder and faster than she would have normally, at least unless Yaz begged her too. Almost too quickly she felt her knot begin to form. This time instead of trying to fight it, instead of reaching between them, she kept fucking Yaz, pressing as hard and deep into her as she could go.

“Yes, yes, yes.” Yaz was having a progressively harder time with words.

With one final trust the knot popped in and began to fill rapidly inside the younger woman’s body.

Yaz froze. “Oh,” she was suddenly biting on her own wrist, “Fuck it hurts. Fuck.”

“Darling, I’m so sorry.” The Doctor rubbed at her back. “I can’t take it out now, I’ll tear you.”

“No, it’s okay.” Yaz was panting. “It’s not a bad pain. You know I like a little pain sometimes.”

She did, they had recently been exploring just how deeply that desire ran in her. This was still a bit much though. The tension the Doctor felt in her mate’s shoulders told her exactly how much Yaz must have been genuinely hurting.

“Are you ready for me to move again?” staying still was taking every ounce of willpower the Doctor had. She was so damn close to coming.

“If you move, I will castrate you.”

She took her word on that and stayed exactly as she was, even as her entire body ached to thrust again.

Eventually Yaz gave a very experimental roll of her hips, and then another for good measure. “Now you can move.”

They couldn’t actually move very much, not locked as they were. The Doctor managed a few shallow thrusts before Yaz suddenly froze and came with a desperate cry. The Doctor followed her immediately. At some point Yaz collapsed and the Doctor followed her down and they lay in a heap.

It was all the Doctor could do to maneuver them both onto their sides, before exhaustion began to force her eyes closed. Even for a Time Lord, coming twice in succession during a rut took a lot of energy. She fell asleep nuzzling Yaz’s soft hair.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conclusion with feels.

When they woke, Yaz was frantic to go again, so they did. This time the Doctor refused to knot her. Yaz refused to admit it but she seemed terribly tender and sore. When they were done, the Doctor insisted on carrying Yaz down to the little fake stream and bathing her. She needed to get the heat scent off of her or she was truly never going to be able to come up with an escape plan.

The coldness of the water seemed to help lessen the grip of whatever aphrodisiac the human had been given. She was shivering by the time the Doctor helped her back up to the shelter and the bed they had yet to lie in.

There was water in a heavy plastic pitcher and food, mostly fruit and nuts. The Doctor urged Yaz to eat and drink. She had no idea what affect the drugs that the Protectors had given Yaz would have. She’d mated plenty of omegas over the years and she knew that it was important to get them to eat and drink even before a heat was over. She had no interest in food herself, she  never did during a rut. When Yaz saw she wasn’t eating she got worried and begged the Doctor to drink some water until she relented and did.

Even with the fake heat scent gone, Yaz still wanted her and when she reached for her, the Doctor couldn’t refuse. They tumbled again and for all her good intentions the Doctor still fell asleep in her mate’s familiar arms.

When they woke there was more food and water beside them. Yaz seemed calmer and ate without being urged to. There were fresh clothes as well and the Doctor dressed before conducting a carefully survey of their enclosure. She left Yaz dozing contentedly in the small bed.  

It was a mistake. When she returned Yaz was gone. A frantic, desperate terror took her. She called and called for her mate and got no answer. Before she knew what she was doing she was bloodying her hands on the projected wall, screaming for Yaz, begging for her to be given back. All dignity, or even anything resembling it, was swallowed by the great abyss of fear and panic that came with losing Yaz when they were so newly heat bonded.

After a moment a hologram flickered into life. “Calm yourself subject 24601.”

“Give her back!”

“Your mate is safe, we are only analyzing her hormone levels.”

“Don’t you dare touch you heartless monsters!” She hadn’t been so lost to rage in so long, not in so many regenerations. She felt as helpless as she had in her first life, when her teachers had found her and Koschei not long after they had first knotted. They’d dragged away the struggling young alpha and left the equally young omega Doctor begging and sobbing for his mate. The Doctor had never forgotten the pain or helplessness of that moment. She had never forgiven it either, not even thirteen regenerations later.

“Hush, hush, she’ll be back soon.”

The Doctor wasn’t going to believe a hologram. She started to kick the wall as well as hit it for good measure. Suddenly a cloud of gas burst from somewhere. She had half a moment of consciousness before she was falling.

She woke to a worried Yaz stroking her face.

Something deep and primal inside of the Time Lady calmed.

“Did they hurt you?” she asked.

“No.” Yaz’s voice didn’t ring true.

“They violated you again.”

Her works seemed to startle Yaz. “It...it wasn’t any worse than going to an OBGYN. I’m fine, really.”

“You smell like antiseptic and strangers,” had she thought before she spoke, she would have realized how much it sounded like an accusation.

Yaz seemed to crumble down beside her wearily. “Just get us out of here baby, please just get us out.”

 

Getting out proved harder than they might have hoped. They spent the next week watching and observing. In the end the Doctor figured out how to jam and override the system in the floor that delivered food. From there it was easy enough to hack the door.

They got out and took over the facility’s computer. She let out all of the compounds sentient prisoners at once. That bit was fun. The Protectors fled very quickly after that. Dealing with a nearly moon sized compound of upset sentient species and having no idea what to do with them proved a bit more complicated.

The Doctor was able to use the computers to call the TARDIS to them. It arrived with a very startled Ryan and Graham. While the Doctor had been teaching all of her current batch of companions how to pilot the TARDIS, Rassilon only knew why she’d never gotten around to doing that before, they were still learning. They didn’t know how to tell it to come find her yet.

Ryan and Graham had been struggling to just figure out how to get the TARDIS to track her when it suddenly just pulled up anchor and  hopped across the galaxy. The next week was one long haze of ferrying countless last members of different species to where they wanted to go.

The non sentient creatures proved more of a challenge. In the end the Doctor ended up taking them to the Twenty Sixth Century Smithsonian zoo on New Earth. It was one of the few institutions she trusted to take care of long lived and highly varied alien species.

All of this meant that the Doctor and Yaz really didn’t get a chance to talk after they escaped out of the enclose. A week after that escape. When everything was just settling down, Yaz went to use the bathroom and found blood in her underwear. When she looked at her phone, she saw that her period was due.

She made it as far as the hallway before the sobs took her. Of all people, it was Graham who found her hugging her knees with her back against the wall.

“Yasime! What’s wrong” He worriedly knelt beside her.

She shook her head sharply. “No, I’m fine. Get the Doctor.”

For once Graham hesitated. “Are you hurt?”  

Her sobs took her for a minute, wracking her body and turning her face into a wet mess. When she began to calm, she was almost surprised to realize that the older man had sat down beside her. He didn’t touch her, didn’t try to hug her the way her father would have. His presence helped in an odd way.

She wiped her face with the hem of her shirt. “I got my period,” she managed to gasp.

Graham continued to look worried. “I’m guessing the crying isn’t just because you are in pain or emotional. You don’t do this every month, I would have noticed if you did.”

“No, it’s because I’m an idiot. I thought I might be pregnant and now I’m not and I was stupid to think I was.”

“Ah.” he didn’t seem to know what to say at first. After a moment he asked tentatively. “Is it related to what happened to you and the Doctor in that horrible alien zoo place?”

Yaz nodded her head. “I thought...I thought I was going to have her baby. The Doctor I mean.” Her face burned and she frantically tried to wipe away tears and snot.

“Is that even possible?” Graham had spent enough time around the Doctor to realize that she was very much not human and not to take anything about her for granted. He had been mostly sure she was female up to that point, but maybe things with aliens were more complicated

“Apparently.” She started to cry again. “I don’t know. The creatures that ran that place did something to me that they said would make the Doctor and me genetically compatible. There’s still a damn metal chip in the back of my head that the Doctor says she can’t take out because it’s too close to my brain stem.”

“I’m so sorry Yaz.”

“It’s, its ok.” She hated the way crying sometimes made her hiccup. “It would have never worked out anyway. What would I have told my parents? That I was pregnant by my alien girlfriend? How could I be a mother or support a child when I haven’t even completed my police training. Hell how could I have possibly had a baby on the TARDIS. What was I going to do, go running after the Doctor on our adventures with an infant in a sling?”

Oddly enough, Graham could actually picture most of that, he didn’t say that. He could tell how much pain his friend was in.

Yaz buried her face in her hands. “I’m so bloody stupid. What was I thinking. I’m only nineteen. I’m too bloody young to be a mother.”

Sometimes Graham really wished he was the kind of man who knew how to hug. He wasn’t and he never really had been.

“You were thinking with your heart, there is no shame in that.”

“It feels like it.”

With a tired breath Graham sunk back against the wall. Just sitting on the floor made his back hurt, then again it hurt most of the time. “I’ve been where you are now Yaz,”

She looked at him with unbelieving red rimmed eyes.

“A lifetime ago, when I was even younger then you are now, I got a girl my own age pregnant. We’d even taken precautions but the rubber broke. She told me when she missed her monthlies. I said I would marry her.

“In that instant I saw my entire life and future shrink from infinite to as as small as the ugly block of council flats we applied to live in. I had no idea how I’d support us, I was only just starting to work in a factory back then. She and me though, neither of us had much choice. She couldn’t just got to the NHS or even a clinic back then, and anything in a back alley could have just as easily killed her. If she’d have had a baby without a ring on her finger, she’d have been ruined and I couldn't let that happen to her.

“Her parents were decent enough folks, didn’t question it when I asked for her hand so suddenly. I think her mother knew and her father might have as well. He must have if he agreed to let his daughter marry a young factory worker who never even finished secondary school. We made arrangements and then before the wedding, when she was a little less than three months in, she bled.

“She said it didn’t even hurt any worse than it usually did. After that, we both started to rethink if we really wanted to go through with things. She got a chance to go work in her aunts seamstress shop in London and she went. It wasn’t long after I started driving buses. I can’t say either of us did much with the futures we got back but at least we each made our own choices after that.”

Yaz thumped her head against the wall. “Was that supposed to help Graham?”

“Sometimes sharing stories does. At least that’s what Grace always said.”

“I...I’m sorry but I don’t think it did. Reminding me that I’m too damn young to have a baby and I’m lucky I’m not pregnant isn’t helping.”

“That wasn’t what I meant at all.”

“Then what did you mean?”

Graham let out a breath. “I’m trying to bloody tell you I understand. Empathy works that way doesn’t it? It was a long time ago, but I once spent two months of my life thinking I was going to be a father. As young and frightened as I was, I started to think about what the baby would be like, about what kind of father I would be. Even if things turned out for the best, I still started to want that potential baby before it ceased to be. What I mean, what I’m trying to say, is that it’s okay to be hurt. It’s alright to be sad to not have a baby, even if having one might have been nearly impossible as well.”

Yaz nodded slowly. “I get you.”

“Good. I’m sorry, I wish I was better with words. I never have been.”

“You do well enough. Thank you.”

The sound of hurried footsteps suddenly filled the hallway. The Doctor rounded the corner, “Yaz, oh my darling Yaz, are you alright? The TARDIS has been sending me in circles for half an hour, ever since I started trying to come back to our room.” She’d been fairly clingy lately.

“I’m fine. Um, I think we should talk.”

And they did, for quite a bit curled up in the safety of the Doctor’s room on her bed under the warm blue flannel sheets she had.

When Yaz told her she’d gotten her period, an odd mix of relief and pain filled the Doctor’s heart achingly expressive face.

Yaz didn’t think through the next thing she said, “Did you want me to be pregnant?”

The Doctor’s deep green eyes, the eyes that had always seemed to belong to a much older woman than her youthful form, got even sadder.

“Yes, but that’s not what matters right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s your body and your future. I’ve done all of this before Yaz, more than once in past reincarnations. This is the only life you get.”

“Wait, you have children?” They had never spoken of this.

“I did. They’re...I really don’t want to talk about that right now. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Yaz might only have one life but it was still long enough to be patient with the Doctor.

After a time the Doctor asked. “Did you want to be pregnant?”

Yaz chewed on her bottom lip nervously. “I think I was ready to accept it, whatever the cost because  I love you and the baby would have been ours. There is so much I still want to do that a baby would complicate. I love how things are, I l love traveling with you and our friends. I love running to and from danger and I want to keep doing that for now” She looked down at her hands, feeling suddenly embarrassed. “Someday though, under better circumstances, I think I might want to think about having a family with you, if it’s even possible.”

“You really mean it,” Hope was the most beautiful thing Yaz had ever seen on the Doctor’s face.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then I want that too, and we’ll talk about it again some day when you are ready.”

“I love you so much right now.”

“I love you too darling.”

And for one brief moment everything seemed possible.


End file.
